Jim,

>> The resolutions of the ibook is one of the 
>> reasons I will probably put out
>> the extra bucks for a powerbook next time.

If you have one of the relatively 'newer' ibooks
there is a hack that will let it run a higher resoultion.

http://macintouch.com 
http://xlr8yourmac.com

Hack described here...
http://www.macparts.de/ibook/

Sadly, it does not work for my 600Mhz G3
iBook.

cheers,

 -tim

Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2002 12:03:28 -0400
From: Wil Macaulay
Subject: Using an extended desktop with an iBook in OSX

Haven't seen anybody report this yet - This site has an Open Firmware
hack that can enable multiple resolutions and monitor scanning for
certain iBooks - not the original 500 Mhz ones, apparently.

WARNING!!! if your machine does not match the following
specifications, wait and check out reader reports on sites like this
and AccelerateYourMac before trying this yourself.

Mine is a 700 Mhz G3 iBook running OSX 10.2.1 and has the following
video characteristics according to the Apple System Profiler:

Card Type ATY,DDParent
Card Name ATY,FallParent
Model ATY, RageM6
VendorID 1002
DevID 4259
ROM# 113-XXXXX-125
Rev 0
Mem 16MB

After applying the hack, I can run an external Sun GDM-5410 as my main
screen at any of the following resolutions at Millions of colours:

640x480
800x600
832x624
1024x768
1152x870
1280x960
1600x1200
and also 1792x1344 at Thousands.

The machine behaves politely when I plug/unplug the external monitor,
moving the menubar back to the LCD or external as hoped for. I can
switch back to mirrored.

The only fly in the ointment is that rebooting into 9.2.2 doesn't
allow me to change resolutions on the external monitor, but leaves it
at 640x480. I haven't tried any of the resolution-setting utilities
for this, since I never use 9.2.2. any more anyway.

That hack makes the iBook a pretty-near perfect little developer machine.